


Four Times the Grandmaster Resurrected Topaz (and One Time He Really Meant It)

by KellerProcess



Series: Super Adventure Best Friends! [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Gore, Friendship, Gen, Grief Issues, Male-Female Friendship, a little comics canon, and a bunch of fanon because like hell we know anything about En, lesbian Topaz, mix of movie canon, omnisexual and not entirely cis Grandmaster, super adventure best friends asemble!, the grandmaster has a weird sense of humor, trauma issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-23 05:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13780557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KellerProcess/pseuds/KellerProcess
Summary: The first time the Grandmaster and Topaz meet, he is blond and she is dead.(A fic about bad jokes, untimely deaths, and eternal friendship.)





	1. Two Hundred Years Ago

_Two hundred years ago_

En Dwi Gast swept his bangs out of his eyes and frowned at the body. He was blond now. Blond was fun. Best of all, no one agreed, so he’d get to be the first.

But the woman lying dead at his feet was not blond; her hair was as black as the kohl with which En lined his eyes—another new fashion statement. She was also built better than either of the bodyguards at his sides.

Which was probably half of the current problem.

“Who is she?” the Grandmaster asked with a frown as he knelt to look at her more closely. Her round face was vaguely familiar, but when you got to be his age, everyone started vaguely resembling each other.

“Scrapper 82, sir,” Goon One said—not that En knew his name, either.

Ah. “Okay, and?” En said, waving his hand. It was the universal gesture for _I don’t understand you; please explain in one of the 8,000 languages I speak_. But of course Goon One just stared at him like a three-eyed slug—which he kind of looked like.

En huffed a sigh. “And who is—was—Scrapper 82? Why haven’t I seen her before now?”

“Well, sir, she specialized in trinkets, scrap metal. Things a being of your effulgence needn’t be concerned—”      

“No, no, no, Chuckles—your name _is_ Chuckles, right? Heavens, you’re terrible at subtext.” The Grandmaster stepped closer and beckoned Goon One—well, Chuckles now—to lean in. “What I’m asking you,” he whispered into Chuckles’s ear, “ _really_ asking you, is why she jumped in front of that blaster beam and crispified her intestines when I pay you and Dogface over there”—he gestured to Goon Two, who kinda had a dog face, so it fit—“the big smackoolas to crispify your intestines when someone tries to shoot me for shits and giggles, or to make a political point, or whatever that now-equally-crispified assassin was trying to do before you got off your lazy butts and crispified him.”

Chuckles’s crimson skin blanched an unbecoming shade of salmon. “Erm, well, you see, Your Excellency—” 

“You’re fired.”

“But sir—” was all Chuckles got out before he screamed and melted into an unbecoming puddle of carbon. Dogface was more stoic, though—he only gasped as En touched the ball of the Melt Stick to his chest.

“I hope you understand,” the Grandmaster said, patting the puddle that had been Chuckles with the toe of his stiletto in sympathy. “It’s nothing personal. It’s just that I really don’t like doling out severance pay. Got to keep costs down. And bringing one competent bodyguard on the payroll instead of keeping two incompetent ones—well. You understand.”

He snapped his fingers toward another pair of guards—the universal gesture for _attend me_ , which thankfully these goons understood. “Carry Scrapper 82 up to my rumpus room—the red one,” he clarified as two of the strongest lifted the woman’s body. “The stains will be less noticeable that way.”

The two looked confused, but obeyed him without question, just as he liked. Trying to explain himself was such a _bother_.

***

Burned intestines. Ruptured colon. Charred bones. Gristly, yes, but easy enough to repair.

_“In and out, in and out. Just like weaving a thread-cradle, or sewing up a regular wound.”_

He remembered as if he’d learned that yesterday, not four billion years ago—or something; really who kept track after the first millennium or so?

En twirled the cosmic energy around and through his fingers, admiring the coils of blue, slightly viscous light.

_“That’s a good lad. One day, you’ll make a wonderful healer.”_

En shook off the distraction. It wasn’t like he exactly needed to concentrate too hard on something so simple, but….

_But I don’t want to think about that now._

Repairing the damage and healing it all up good as new took less time than it did to boil water—and the kettle was whistling just as he reknit the scrapper’s ribs and closed up her torn and bruised skin.

She was stirring as he poured the tea. By the time he returned to the chaise he’d had her stretched out on, she was sitting up, looking dazed.

“I…what?” She looked up into his eyes, and he was struck by just how brown her own eyes were.

_I’ll have to try that color next._

“Grandmaster?” She looked down at her body, at the pinkened, healing skin visible through the massive hole in the abdomen of her jumpsuit. “What?”

“Hush now, you’ve got a lot of questions, but I’ve got a lot more.” He held out one of the two teacups to her. “It’s fine,” he said when she looked between it and him in bewilderment. “Nothing fatal. I mean”—he chuckled—“why would I have gone to all this trouble to resurrect you just to _poison_ you? No, it’s just a little something to help you feel a bit less like death warmed over and more like, well, life warmed over, I guess. Go on,” he said, shaking it just a little, which mean, _seriously, take it before I get tired of being nice and just dump it on you_. 

Thankfully, Scrapper 82 seemed to be fluent in things people shouldn’t have to say. She took the proffered teacup and gave him a grim look as she sipped.

“Mhh, yes? Good,” the Grandmaster encouraged before sipping at his own cup. “Okay, then. To answer your question: I brought you back to answer _my_ question, which is: why?”

“Why?” Scrapper 82 asked, lowering her teacup back into its saucer. Her impassive expression hadn’t changed an iota.

“Goodness, but you’re calm for a woman who’s just returned from the dead! That’s impressive. But it still doesn’t answer my question.”

“Which is what, sir?”

“Ah. No, no, no.” He wagged his finger at her. “Although, I do like the _sir_. No, it’s _why_ , Scrapper 82? As soon as that Krylorian nogoodnik pulled out his blaster, you leaped from the crowd like a gazelle and took the blast aimed right for my solar plexus.” He patted the area and took another sip of his tea. “That suggests a few possibilities: that you’re either incredibly stupid, incredibly loyal, or incredibly deranged.”

He looked at Scrapper 82, expecting her to volunteer the answer. When she merely regarded him with that same expression, he huffed out a sigh.

“Okay. Add incredibly frustrating to that list.” En crossed his legs and placed his teacup on the table between them as he sat forward. “I think I can rule out incredibly stupid. Scrappers are a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. Loyal is right out too, seeing as you don’t know me and I don’t even know your name.”

“Topaz.”

En tilted his head to the side. “No, no. I feel like you’ve just—that that’s not an answer.”

Scrapper 82 huffed out her own sigh and—and this was the kicker—actually rolled her eyes. At him! Except it wasn’t in a smug, superior way that usually irritated him. No, it was more like she was amused. “That’s my _name_ ,” she explained. “And I’m not stupid. Or deranged.”

“You sure about that last one? I mean, you do collect scrap for a living and you did just effectively commit suicide for someone you hadn’t even met—even if he is handsome and ridiculously charismatic.”

Topaz shrugged.

“Uh, was that a ‘no, you’re not actually handsome or charismatic’ or—”

“You make me laugh.” Topaz put her own teacup down and crossed her legs, her position now mirroring his own. “Before the matches. When you introduce the shows. Whenever you address us, really.”

“Uh.” He knew he was a laugh and a half, but…. “And that’s enough to, what? Let your guts get deep-fried?”

“I haven’t had a lot of laughter in my life.”

Well, then. “You know it wouldn’t have worked, right? I mean, I’m, like, kind of immortal and invulnerable to something as simple as shot from a cheap blaster held together by spit and chewing gum.”

“It’s the principle of the thing.”

The Grandmaster retrieved his teacup as he thought that answer over. “Sakaar is a place for lost things; lost people,” he said sagely before taking another sip. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong, Topaz—may I call you Topaz? It’s kind of silly, calling you Scrapper 82 after I’ve just spent the last five minutes basically giving you a new stomach.” He didn’t wait for a response. “But I’m _kind_ of getting the sense here that you might call yourself one of those lost things?”

Really, why was he asking? Why did he even _care_? He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t Sakaar’s resident therapist.

_Because she intrigues you._

En blinked at the thought.

_Not many things intrigue you anymore._

He pursed his lips in thought. _You’re right. Most things don’t._

She rolled her eyes. “You’ve got my loyalty, sir. But if you’re asking for my life story, you aren’t going to get it.”

Now that— _that_ —was intriguing. Just like the death glare she was giving someone who had not only brought her back to life, but who had the power to end that life.

“Well, okay, okay,” he said, holding up his hands. “Just trying to be sociable. But I can see you’re a woman of few words, Topaz—and a woman nothing much fazes. So I’ll get right down to it. I’ve just fired both of my personal bodyguards for being both incredibly stupid _and_ incredibly disloyal—well, _fired_ , so to speak.” He put air quotes around the word. “Like you said, it’s the principle of the thing. I haven’t made any new hiring decisions just yet. Now, hypothetically speaking, if I were to, uh, offer you a slight promotion up from trinket-seller and scavenger, might you—again, hypothetically speaking—be interested?”

Topaz studied him.

“It comes with full benefits, plenty of vacation time, and all the laughter you can stand,” he offered with a smile. “Eh?”

And finally, finally, he got a nod.

“Wonderful!” En clapped his hands together as he rose to his feet. “Well, it’s settled, then.”

And was it his imagination, or did that get him the ghost of a smile?

The fact he was smiling back, though, definitely wasn’t his imagination.


	2. One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago

En Dwi Gast set back on his favorite golden chair and ran a hand over the gelled spikes crowning his head. He was brunet now. Brunet was fun. Best of all, no one agreed, so he’d get to be the first.

It wasn’t the most comfortable chair to sit in for a few hours, but that was all right. He was almost out of creative and painful ways to kill Cousin Carlo so his back and hips wouldn’t ache much longer.

“Please, cousin,” Carlo begged. For this particular death—the final one, because En was getting bored of this whole rigmarole—the Grandmaster had staked him out on the floor for a nice round of drawing and quartering—well, an abridgement, really. He’d already done death by disembowelment and death by ripping out Carlo’s heart. And he _so_ hated to repeat himself.

En tsked and wagged a finger at him. “No, no, nuh-no-no, cuz. You see, begging for mercy comes before I’ve killed you, what, ninety-nine times now? Ninety-five? And really, the old adage is wrong, you know. It’s better to ask permission than forgiveness. And you really should’ve asked permission before trying to kill Topaz.”

Carlo looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. It was far too late for that, though. En’s screws had been loose for at least a few million years. Million. Billion. Whatever.

“Permission t— She tried to kill _me_!” he sputtered.

“Yes, and?” At Carlo’s incredulous look, the Grandmaster scoffed. “Oh, don’t give me that look. You must’ve done something to deserve it, because, I mean, you really _are_ an annoying little shit. Frankly speaking, I can’t believe I hired you.”

You’d think a man you’d killed ninety-two—ninety?—times would know better than to provoke you, but well, this Cousin Carlo really _was_ an annoying little shit pot. The mocking laugh and smile he gave then proved it. “Oh, I see what this is. You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

The Grandmaster stared at him for a long moment before doubling over in laughter. Okay, okay. Now he remembered why he’d hired this iteration. This version of Cousin Carlo could be so obtuse sometimes, it was pants-dropping hilarious! “Oh, Carlo, Carlo, Carlo. _Car_ lo. I admit my type is basically everything, but that doesn’t mean every _one_. And even if I were, her type is very much not me. Or anything remotely male. Which is usually me. Why do you hear ‘My bodyguard probably had a good reason to shoot you’ and immediately think ‘Ohh, Topaz and the Grandmaster are _totally_ going out!’?”

Carlo’s eyes widened like he’d just achieved enlightenment or something. “It’s even worse than that, isn’t it, En? She’s gotten to you. Even deeper than some romantic fling. Even deeper than mere eros.”

The Grandmaster’s hand tightened into a fist. When he spoke, his tone was glacial. “Right. I’m tired of this game. Bye-bye now.”

He didn’t even bother with the drawing or quartering. With a flick of his wrist, energy shot from his palm; not the blue viscous healing kind, but a pulsing, angry red.

Carlo was still smiling when his head rolled from his cauterized neck.

As he drew the energy back into his hand, the Grandmaster realized he was shaking.

_“What did I tell you?”_

_It was the only time she had ever shouted at him. Her kindly blue face was twisted in anger._

_It scared him. Worse than that, for the only time in his eight years of life that he felt truly ashamed._

_“Look at me.” She grabbed him by the forearms and shook him, and just like that, his eyes snapped up to look into her own. They were white like galaxies._

_“You are never to use your healing powers to cause another harm.”_

_“But Carlo was was— He hit me, and—”_

_And just like that, her eyes softened and clarified back to their usual, kind blue. With a sigh, she smoothed a hand through his rumpled, short hair. “You are so talented, so precocious, sometimes I forget how young you truly are,” she said before kneeling down to his level. “En Dwi, listen to me now. There will always be Cousin Carlos in life who hurt us. But we must never hurt them back unless we have no other choice. And we must never use our powers that are meant to heal, to harm. Do you understand?”_

_He didn’t. Not really. But it was important to her, so he nodded._

_“That’s a good lad,” she said before pulling him close._

_Her hair smelled like saffron and spice._

En shook his head to dispel the memory and clenched and unclenched his hands until they stopped trembling.

_This happens at all the worst times._

“I should have fired him weeks ago,” he told Topaz. “He’s the worst Cousin Carlo I’ve ever worked with.”

Topaz, of course, didn’t respond. Because she was dead now too, thanks to the knife shoved so far into her chest, the hilt had almost disappeared.

The Grandmaster stepped from the dais and strode across the room, blue energy already arching between his hands.

“Don’t you worry,” he told her as he knelt beside the couch where he’d laid her out after the first time he’d killed Ex-Carlo. “We’ll fix you up in no time at all.”

Well, just a little time, actually. The striated muscles in Topaz’s bisected heart resisted closing up and reforming at first, but a little extra nudge of energy had them revitalizing. After that, it was only a matter of repairing a shattered rib or two and some necrotizing breast tissue before closing up the wound.

This time, he’d already poured the tea and set it out before Topaz stirred.

“Welcome back,” he chirped as she opened her eyes and rubbed her head. “How are you feeling?”

“Like my head’s being jackhammered open.”

The Grandmaster frowned. That was odd. She didn’t usually feel sick after being revived. “Well, tea usually solves everything,” he offered, nudging her cup a little closer. “Or circuses. But I’m guessing you’re really not in a mood for that right now.”

“Oh, get bent,” she grumbled, rubbing her forehead.

“You’re really lucky I like you, you know that?”

Topaz rubbed the bridge of her nose as she sat up, but smirked at him after taking a sip of her tea.

“It’s easing off a bit,” she said after a moment. “How long was I out?”

“Oh, a good few hours.” Maybe that was why. _Note to self: resurrect Topaz sooner the next time she dies._

“You had something better to do?”

“Oh, heavens no. I was just busy torturing Cousin Carlo and inventing new and fun ways to kill him.”

The amazing thing about Topaz—well, one of many, actually—was that this news didn’t horrify her like it would most people. Instead of screaming or calling him an evil tyrant, she just raised one thick eyebrow and peered around his shoulder at Carlo’s decapitated body.

“Did you really have to do this in the gold rumpus room?” she asked. “It’s going to take me hours to get the stains off the tile.”

The Grandmaster shook his head and waved his hand at her, the universal gesture _for don’t trouble yourself over something so menial; I’ll just let the Roomba take care of it_.

“Was that really enough reason for you to shoot at him?”

Topaz’s expression, which was usually pretty guarded, locked up faster than a bar that’d just run out of free hooch.

“He’s a Kree—or was one.”

“Topaz, really,” the Grandmaster admonished, “I thought you were more enlightened than that!”

She just shrugged.

“Oh, I know that look,” he said, rising as he shook his finger at her. “There’s a story here, isn’t there?”

“I told you,” Topaz sighed. “My past is—”

“None of my business, yadda yadda bing bang,” En finished. And stood there staring at her, which was the universal gesture for _I’m not going to go away until you tell me. Because I assume it’s a really good story since you’ve kept it from me for fifty years now_.

They engaged in a staring game then, which the Grandmaster won, because of course he always did. Exhaling, Topaz stared down at her hands.

“The Kree will invade Gwendor—that’s a human colony,” she explained when En tilted his head to the side. “They’ll destroy and loot and kill everything they find, and the people they won’t kill, they’ll take back to their homeworld to experiment on.”

“You keep saying ‘will,’ like, as in, in the future.”

“I know,” she said, still not looking up. “Because it’s going to happen nineteen hundred and fifty-four years from now.”

“Uh…okay.” The Grandmaster blinked. “Is this, like um, some kind of premonition?” He wasn’t aware Topaz had psychic powers. Perhaps that was why she was such a good bodyg—

“I know because I’m there, all right?” Topaz’s head shot up. “I’m there, and they kill my family, and Mary.”

That was the thing about Topaz. She was never agitated. She never yelled. And most notably, she never cried.

For some reason, it was like taking a hit to the chin—one that knocked him speechless.

“Mary was your wife, wasn’t she?” he asked, feeling completely stupid. Because of course. Why did he even say that?

Topaz nodded, furiously brushing at her eyes.

“Hey.” En wasn’t sure when he stood or moved around the table. He just knew that when he rested his hand on Topaz’s shoulder, she didn’t pull away.

For some reason, that only seemed to make it worse.

“She was so beautiful.” The sob nearly strangled her, and all he could do was just…stand there, patting her shoulder. “Just…so much better. Than anyone. And I…I couldn’t…. And I hoped. If I did, that maybe…. Maybe it would stop….”

“But if you did that, you know. Killed him and he had something to do with it. You might cease to exist.”

“I don’t care. It would mean that my one chance to go back, and messing it up and ending up here, that it would mean something.”

And for some reason, that felt like another chin-shot.  “You can’t always change the future, Tope,” the Grandmaster said. _Believe me, I’ve tried._ “That’s not the way this game is played—”

“This is not a game to me!”

 “Shh, shh. I know. I know.” He slid his hand to her back and rubbed small circles there.

_“Shh, shh. I know, lad. I know. But there are some things in this big old universe you can’t change.”_

“There are too many variables and, uh, other things. Temporal paradoxes and—”

_And you may have just accidently set the whole invasion in motion, even._

_Wow, I’m wonderful at this comfort thing, aren’t I?_

“And, well, just too many Kree out there and too many microinteractions that make up what will be,” En said instead. He sank down next to her, shuffling his silver robes out of the way. “But I am sorry for your loss.”

And when did he say he was sorry for or about anything?

He shook his head. “I’m just not….”

“I know.”

When Topaz put her hand on his shoulder, he didn’t flinch away either.

They sat there for a while, just sipping their tea as En tried to keep visions of fire and ice from his mind. He assumed she was doing the same.

“So,” he said when his teacup was empty. “Guess we need a new Cousin Carlo.”

“Guess so.”

“I mean, that’s what happens when you can’t keep your head in the game.”

 Topaz’s shoulders began to shake again.

“Oh, hey now,” he said, “I know that was probably the only time I’ve ever made a terrible pun, but it’s nothing to c—”

“Oh my God.” She threw her head back in a laugh that lit up her face like a supernova. “You did not just—”

“Oh no. I did. I really think I did.”

Topaz shook her head. “You’re terrible.”

“No, I’m not terrible.” The Grandmaster darted up from the chaise and snatched Carlo’s head from the floor. “This, though. _This_ is terrible.” Nestling Carlo’s neck stump on top of his spiky hair, he asked, “So, would you say I’m two heads taller than you now?”

Topaz stared at him as her lips trembled.

“Uh, three?” he asked, holding his arms out. “Maybe th—”

The movement jarred Carlo’s head free. It toppled from his pate and smashed against the floor with a crunch-splash of bone and brains.

“Uh, okay. Make that one. Heavens, but you’re one sick puppy,” the Grandmaster laughed as Topaz doubled over on the chaise.

“ _Me_? I’m not the one who—who—”

“I know, right? We’re never going to get that out of the lacquer.”

It was the least funny exchange he’d ever had. With anyone. In millions of years. But neither of them seemed to get the memo. Topaz only stopped laughing as her throat seized in a cough.

“Oh no, oh no,” En said, racing over and putting his hand on her head. “Whatever you do, don’t—don’t die on me again. Once a day is the limit. And I really mean that, missy!”

He shook his finger at her and they burst out laughing again.

“Ohh, this really isn’t funny.”

“I know!” Topaz howled, then finally coughed herself down into a giggle.

“Here,” En said with a snicker as he scooped up her teacup. “I meant it, no dying.”

Topaz giggled and nodded as he refilled the cup, then handed it back to her.

“What are we laughing at?” she asked after a long drink.

“I don’t know!”

They looked at each other, and that set them off again. And even though it wasn’t funny, wasn’t funny at all, fire and ice and the echoes of screaming made him keep laughing, and laughing, and laughing.

Because the alternative really was unthinkable.

 


End file.
